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The Israelites get a nice horn as a parting gift as they leave Mount Sinai.
But that doesn't stop some of them from complaining and getting smote by God. Haven't they learned by now? Seriously!
Why do the Israelites suddenly have no flesh to eat? Did they kill off all of their flocks with sacrifices?
When God hears their cries, why does it make him angrier? He provides flesh, and when they eat it he kills them. This is a very schizophrenic deity.
We also see the sexism in God's judgements when he gives Miriam leprosy and not Aaron.
I have to take the writer to task on this bit though;
14:18 The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.
After two killing sprees, because the people wanted to eat, the last thing I would call God is merciful and forgiving.
Chapter 14 ends with God killing the scouts and telling Moses that the Israelites will wander the desert for 40 years and that nobody over 20 will see the promised land.
Good stuff!
@Bruce
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more. I kept thinking "WTF?" as I was reading this. People complaining that they don't have anything to eat? Kill 'em! People eating the meat you provided? Ah, what the hell, kill them too!
Props to Moses tho for speaking up in 11:11! "Look buddy, all this wasn't MY bright idea! Don't like the job I'm doin? Find yourself another leader!" At which point god backs down some and hires some staff for the old man.
Also in 14:11 god asks Moses how long the people will be complaining. He doesn't know? He needs some insight from poor, overworked Moses?!
Sign me up with the folks ready to head back to Egypt!! Ole Pharaoh's not looking so bad.
13:33 - Cool! Giants!!
@Bruce
ReplyDelete"Why do the Israelites suddenly have no flesh to eat? Did they kill off all of their flocks with sacrifices?"
It was not that they did not have flesh to eat, they got tired of the manna that they were eating 11:6, they used it for allot of stuff. So after 2 years (1:1) i guess they were getting tired of having it. No they did not kill of all of their flocks. :-) 11:22 Moses is asking about using all the flocks and the herds. I think he forgot who he was talking to. They may have been to covetous to kill and eat of their own flocks and lessen what they had. Or else they wanted something else like the fish they had in Egypt. Mentioning Egypt do we quickly forget how they cried when they were in Egypt (Exodus 2:23;3:7,9) and now listen to them talking like they lived like kings (11:5). So just two years away and they forget how bad it really was there.
"We also see the sexism in God's judgements when he gives Miriam leprosy and not Aaron."
Here is another way to look at this.
(MHC)
Miriam was struck with a leprosy, but not Aaron, because she was first in the transgression, and God would put a difference between those that mislead and those that are misled. Aaron's office, though it saved him not from God's displeasure, yet helped to secure him from this token of his displeasure, which would not only have suspended him for the present from officiating, when (there being no priests but himself and his two sons) he could ill be spared, but it would have rendered him and his office mean, and would have been a lasting blot upon his family. Aaron as priest was to be the judge of the leprosy, and his performing that part of his office upon this occasion, when he looked upon Miriam, and behold she was leprous, was a sufficient mortification to him. He was struck through her side, and could not pronounce her leprous without blushing and trembling, knowing himself to be equally obnoxious. This judgment upon Miriam is improvable by us as a warning to take heed of putting any affront upon our Lord Jesus. If she was thus chastised for speaking against Moses, what will become of those that sin against Christ?
"Chapter 14 ends with God killing the scouts and telling Moses that the Israelites will wander the desert for 40 years and that nobody over 20 will see the promised land."
No Chapter 14 ends with the the people regretting what they did. Repenting and then trying to get into the promised land. Being told by Moses that God will not go with them, they then think they could go out to war alone without God, thus getting their tails kicked.
Fair warning: I'm attempting to exegete under the influence of שֵׁכָר.
ReplyDeletech. 10. I love the self-animated Ark. It has some crazy adventures in 1st Samuel.
11
I love how the Israelites start whining the MOMENT they leave Mt. Sinai/Horeb. Apparently they learned NOTHING from the experience. We have a return to punage: Taberah means "burning".
Now we have E's manna story. I've already babbled ad naseum about it. In any event, this is the second and longest E description of the Tent of the Presence, which differs considerably from the Tabernacle.
12
Moses suddenly has a Cushite wife. Wasn't his wife Midianite? Did he get a second wife? Are Cushites and Midianites analogous?
Moses saying he was the humblest man on earth is an amusing paradox if he wrote this himself.
Notice Aaron and Miriam are both guilty of the same sin/whatever, but God only punishes Miriam. Aaron gets off scot-free in the E text (he wasn't punished for the golden calves, either.)
13 and 14 are a tight intermingling of J or E with P.
The return of the Nephilim! Haven't seen them since the earliest days of Genesis. I wish we got more stories about them.
First appearance of Joshua. He is an evil man who will gleefully lead his people to war in their ethnic cleansing of Canaan.
The Israelites freak out when they learn about the giants. In J, Caleb is the only one to say "it'll be okay!" In P, it is Caleb and Joshua.
The most vibrant example of doubling is 11-25 (J) and 26-38 (P), where the LORD curses the people for their momentary panic. (the J story then rounds off the chapter.) P's God is a lot harsher but J's has an actual conversation with Moses.
Miriam was struck with a leprosy, but not Aaron, because she was first in the transgression, and God would put a difference between those that mislead and those that are misled
ReplyDeleteWhere in the text does it say or imply that Miriam's transgression preceded Aaron's? It says "And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses". Miriam's name happens to come first, but in *any* language, when you have two words paired with "and", one will arbitrarily have to come first, given that language is sequential.
The Hebrew order is: [3rd-person "spoke"] [Miriam] [and-Aaron] [against-Moses]. Hebrew loves the VSO.
I don't know Hebrew but I can't imagine this construction implies precedence to Miriam's spaking. An identical construction (verb, name, and-name) is used when Noah's sons cover his nakedness, surely an action that was simultaneous.
Maybe Miriam's name coming first breaks a common pattern where women are made subservient to men, even syntaxically, and thus Miriam's name coming first implies extra importance to her in the story. That's the only reason I can come up with.
This judgment upon Miriam is improvable by us as a warning to take heed of putting any affront upon our Lord Jesus.
Is there anything in the OT they can't turn into a secret message about Jesus?
The timeline is all jumbled and confusing. 40 years gets mentioned throughout the books we've just read. I always assumed that it was 40 years from the time they left Egypt, but now it's 40 years for the 40 days they spent scouting. Exactly how long did they wander, and why did God lead them on a wild goose chase for so long? He must have known that they were going to get tired of it and complain, so killing them for complaining seems petty.
ReplyDeleteThe return of the Nephilim made me scratch my head. The children of the Nephilim were the wicked ones who got wiped out in the flood, everyone else should be descendants of Noah. Who, by the way, found favor with God ... so shouldn't his descendants have as well? Instead God changes favorites and now spends his time trying to get his favorites to wipe out all the other guys.
The quail thing made me scratch my head too. If you had to eat the same thing every single day, even prepared in different ways, for years you would cry out in agony too. Not to mention the health problems as we need a diversity of foods to be healthy (and sane). Also, "if only we had meat to eat"? Were all of those burnt offerings and sacrifices just notes for the future when they might have herds? Kind of hard to get clean or forgiven if there's no meat around.
Speaking of that - does anyone know how they would have marked clean vs. unclean? There are an awful lot of things that can make you unclean, including being in the vicinity of someone who is unclean. If it's an honor system, I imagine there was a lot of unreported uncleanliness.
The idea that God punishes the sins of the parents to the third and fourth (or seventh, in some verses) generations is a bit terrifying. I don't even know who my ancestors are four generations up, much less what they might have done that pissed off God. The idea that I am responsible for my own actions and their consequences is a much less guilt-ridden way to live life.
Sorry for all of the thoughts, big blocks of text mean lots of things to comment on at once!
It was nagging me so I had to figure out if Hebrew marks verbs for gender, because that could imply Miriam was the subject. (I know, I know, WHO CARES.)
ReplyDeleteI've found a few references, and apparently the conjugation of "to speak" means either "she will speak" and "you will speak". Which are, uh, future tense. BUT apparently (see here) the prefix וַ ("and-") changes the tense to past.
So... it's a feminine verb. Does that imply Miriam is the subject? Anybody know how Biblical Hebrew chooses verb gender for mixed-gender plural subjects? If it takes the gender of the first name, then my original point still stands. If it defaults to masculine (like Spanish) then that could mean Miriam is intended as the primary subject.
Kinda almost done caring, but at least I learned something about Hebrew verb conjugation!
Abbie, if it's not to much trouble, could you conjugate all the Hebrew verbs for us for future reference? ;-)
ReplyDeleteWe do thank you for your obsessive behavior!
First appearance of Joshua. He is an evil man who will gleefully lead his people to war in their ethnic cleansing of Canaan.
ReplyDeleteOnce again, if you reject moral absolutes you're going to have a tough time grounding your use of the word evil.
re: ethnic cleansing – the real question is does God have the moral authority to take life after it has been created? If we shouldn’t “play God” should God be able to play God? If God is the life giver and life is a gift then can God remove that gift? The issue with the Canaanites, we should point out, is not an ethnic one but a moral and theological matter. Paul Copan, in his new book Is God A Moral Monster, points out that the ancient near eastern technique of hyperbole is in effect when the writer of Joshua says that nothing was left breathing and you keep reading on and there are still Canaanites living there. The thing God wants is the Canaanite religion destroyed. The Canaanite religion was engaged in temple prostitution, child sacrifice, bestiality, etc. God is punishing their iniquity and His judgment is upon them.
@Valerie
ReplyDeleteI am going to try and cover as many questions as i can of yours before i have to call it a night.
"Exactly how long did they wander, and why did God lead them on a wild goose chase for so long?"
They wandered for 40 years. We did see it mentioned in Exodus 16:35; then in Numbers 14:33. Also Numbers 32:11-13 sheds a little more light on why they were to wander for 40 years.
"He must have known that they were going to get tired of it and complain, so killing them for complaining seems petty."
No they had not wandered for 40 years at this time of complaining. Maybe 2 1/2 years? (Numbers 1:1) I think this is right after and sometime shortly after they were told they were not going into the promised land because of their unbelief(14:22,23). Because they believed the report the 10 spies gave that did not think they could take the land (13:31-33).
"The children of the Nephilim were the wicked ones who got wiped out in the flood, everyone else should be descendants of Noah. Who, by the way, found favor with God ... so shouldn't his descendants have as well?"
Wicked man got wiped out in the flood (Genesis 6:5-7)
And the giants that were in the land, it is mentioned that they were there before and after the flood (Genesis 6:4).
The descendants of Noah could find favour with God if they want a personal relationship with God. However to often man does not want a relationship with God so they go about life on their own terms. Just because a dad has a relationship with God does not mean the kids will. When we get to the later books you will see where one king will do good and be blessed and another won't. And it goes on that way allot. I don't know why people didn't pick up on the pattern. Follow God things go great, leave God things go bad. I guess hind sight is always 20/20.
"The idea that God punishes the sins of the parents to the third and fourth (or seventh, in some verses) generations is a bit terrifying."
No this is not, my dad committed a wicked crime so i am going to jail with him. (Deuteronomy 24:16 also Ezekiel 18:20)
This is dad screwed up and is going to jail, it was in the local paper so all my friends that read know, mom needs to get a full time job and a smaller house, told me to move on with my life and make it on my own, so now i have to find a place to live and try to finish high school. Granted this one ends in (Exodus 20:6).
"The idea that I am responsible for my own actions and their consequences is a much less guilt-ridden way to live life."
Yes you have this correct, you are responsible for your own actions. The personal sins of your ancestors you are not responsible for. However some of the consequences may have effected you. Like one of my best friends, his dad had an opportunity to get stock in McDonalds when it was a new company, yet did not think it would make it. Ya... his son regrets that decision, he would have a whole lot more money now. :-D
"Sorry for all of the thoughts, big blocks of text mean lots of things to comment on at once!"
Keep it coming. I enjoy reading other peoples thoughts on the Bible and hopefully providing something back to think about.